I think quickmeme's (and its ilk) success (well, besides the part based on vote-manipulation) is a great example of how smoothing a couple of steps in an otherwise mundane and everyone-knows-how-to-do-it process can be a real product. Having to make an image via quickmeme, then copy-paste and click over to imgur, and then upload it to Reddit is a trivial set of steps...yet, those steps add up...and for many users, it's just a matter of time before the labor of the steps outweighs the impulse to post a meme...and then, the volume of memes will be dampened

(OTOH, if it takes more work to post a meme, then maybe only the good ones that people make the effort to post will be seen)

No, quickmeme doesn't actually generate the final images. Instead it layers a transparent PNG on top of the image.